Flarn2006's Blog

How to get rid of NOD32 without a password

2011-08-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

My dad recently gave me an old laptop his office was throwing away, but it came with ESET's NOD32 antivirus software on it. Normally this would be a good thing, but it was preventing me from visiting certain websites because it "suspected" they had a virus, and I needed a password to uninstall it which I did not know. However, I found a way to uninstall it without the password.

Reboot your computer in Safe Mode. (press F8 before the Windows logo appears.)
Select Safe Mode (or Safe Mode with Networking if you don't want to print this out)
Log in as Administrator (this might not be necessary, but it's what I did.)
Click the Start menu and right-click My Computer
Click Properties, then go to the Advanced tab
Click Environment Variables
Under User Variables, click Add
Type "DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES" for the variable name, and "1" for the value (without quotes).
Click OK, and then click the Hardware tab.
Click Device Manager.
In the new window that appears, go to View>Show hidden devices
Uninstall the following devices (Action menu>Uninstall): eamon, eadrv, epfwtdir, and any of them that say "nod32"
Close Device Manager and the System control panel
Open your NOD32 installation directory (usually C:\Program Files\ESET\ESET NOD32 Antivirus)
Delete everything in there except shellext.dll (if you can, it's okay to delete shellext.dll, but for me I couldn't delete it.) Alternatively, move it to another folder.
Go to Start>Run, and type "msconfig".
Click the Startup tab.
Scroll down until you see "egui", and uncheck it.
Click OK and reboot.

When you log back in, NOD32 should no longer be installed. Some things may remain, such as registry values, but they shouldn't interfere with anything. I don't know if you can then reinstall it with a different password, but it's worth a shot.

I hope this helped!

C source code to display 2D sine pattern in console

2011-02-18T16:43:00.002-05:00

I wrote a program that displays a 2D sine pattern in the console. It's mainly just for fun, as it doesn't really do anything else, but it looks cool.

NOTE: If it gives errors about unresolved externals when you try to compile it, it's because you need to link it with a curses library, such as ncurses or pdcurses.

Source code: http://pastebin.com/n49wmSb3
Sample output: http://pastebin.com/0r38z05H

Grow HFS+ partition on Mac OS X without Disk Utility

2010-09-19T20:08:00.000-04:00

I have Boot Camp set up, and I had shrunk my main Macintosh HD partition to make room for an Ubuntu partition. Turns out I didn't really want it as much as I thought I did, so I used a GPartEd live CD to remove the partition. However, it wouldn't let me grow it back. Turns out GPartEd can't do that. I called AppleCare to ask what I should do, and I was actually on the telephone for a little over an hour. They told me to use Disk Utility to grow the partition. I tried, however, and it gave me the error message "Partition Failed with the error: Filesystem resize support required, such as HFS+ with Journaling enabled." They tried to help, but they weren't able to solve the problem. I came across this forum post, however, and it mentioned the diskutil command, more specifically the resizeVolume subcommand. I tried this, and it worked! Here's what to do if you ever have the same problem:

Open Disk Utility.
Select the volume you want to grow, and click Info in the toolbar.
Note the Disk Identifier (from here on referred to as ????), and optionally quit Disk Utility.
Open the Terminal.
Type the following command: diskutil resizeVolume /dev/???? limits
Note the Maximum Size (not the part in parentheses.)
Type the following command: sudo diskutil resizeVolume /dev/???? [maximum size]
Enter your password if prompted.

In Step 7, do include the GB after the size, but don't put the space in between.

Here's a screen transcript of what I did in the Terminal in case it helps (highlighted lines represent what I typed): http://pastebin.com/hKMkCsQy

Secret registry settings in Paint: Snap to grid

2010-05-13T21:57:00.001-04:00

Did you know that Paint has a secret feature that lets you snap to an invisible grid? This has nothing to do with the grid that you can display when zoomed in. The only downside, however, is that it involves editing the Registry, and therefore only takes effect when Paint is loaded. (You can always, of course, save your picture and reload it when you want to change grid settings.) For your convenience, I have put together 10 regfiles, as follows:

OFF: Disables snapping to the grid. (Default setting.)
ON: Enables snapping to the grid.
1-128: Sets the grid size to whichever number is chosen.

The registry values are in this key: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Paint\View
SnapToGrid is the value you change (DWORD, 0 or 1) to turn the grid on or off. GridExtent (DWORD) is the value you change to set the grid size. It does not need to be a power of two, although all the regfiles I provided are. If you find yourself using a certain number a lot, but it isn't a power of two, you can make your own regfile for it.

I hope you find this useful!

Extend the 60-second limit in Sound Recorder

2010-02-16T00:38:00.002-05:00

You know that annoying 60-second limit in Windows XP's Sound Recorder? (Vista doesn't have it, but don't get me started on what else it doesn't have...) Some suggestions people have are using the Decrease Speed function, clicking the Record button quickly after it stops, or simply using another program. However, if none of these options are doing it for you, I've got a more geeky solution involving a hex editor, such as XVI32, which I'll be using.

You can't really remove the limit, as it works by allocating enough memory for that long a recording, but you can increase (or decrease, if you really want to) the amount of recording time it gives you. Now, you can't go crazy and set it to 9,999,999,999 seconds or something, as you need to have enough memory. (Audacity gets away with this by recording to the hard drive.) 5 minutes, however, is more than enough for most purposes.

(If you're using XVI32, skip the next paragraph.)

First, you're gonna need to convert that to seconds. 5 × 60 = 300 seconds, or 0x12C. Inside the EXE, the limit is stored as a 4-byte long value. You may think that as 4 bytes would be 00 00 01 2C, but the bytes are reversed. Instead, it's 2C 01 00 00. It's confusing, I know, but it's just the way it is.

Anyway, make a copy of Sound Recorder, and open the copy in your hex editor. The limit is stored at address 0x628E, so goto (in XVI32, it's Address>Goto...) that address. Follow the instructions below:

If you're using XVI32:

Go to Tools->Encode number...
Type 300 (or however many seconds) in the text box.
Select "longint (4 bytes)" on the left.
Select "Overwrite at current adress [sic]" on the right.
Click OK.

If you're using another hex editor:

Switch to Overwrite mode if necessary, usually using the Insert key. You should be able to tell which mode you're in by looking at the status bar. It should say either Insert (INS) or Overwrite (OVR).
Type in the four bytes you calculated above, such as 2C 01 00 00.

Now save, and run your modified Sound Recorder. It should give you a different limit, as seen in the "Length:" box on the right after clicking Record. Now, if you're so inclined, you can replace your original Sound Recorder with the new one.

Simple gravity simulator in Visual Basic

2009-12-27T03:03:00.000-05:00

I wrote a program in Visual Basic that simulates gravity. Basically, it just simulates a box falling. Not that interesting, but the point is you can look at my code and see how I did it. As you can see from the screenshot, it has two modes: manual step, where you can click the Step button to advance one frame, and automatic, where it runs the simulation in realtime. You can also turn off the gravity, which basically just disables acceleration. The scale is one inch to one meter, but I don't think it matters.

(Now to get some sleep...)

EDIT: I really was tired. I forgot to post the download link! Sorry about that... :-/
Here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/?jzamowkogdd

Fix audio problems when running XP in Boot Camp

2009-11-02T23:10:00.000-05:00

I have Windows XP installed on my MacBook Pro with Boot Camp, and until now I have been having two problems with the audio. One is that the volume is way too low, even at max. The other is that certain programs, such as the Source engine (games like HL2, Portal, TF2, etc.) don't work with the microphone. However I have recently come across a modified driver that fixes both of these problems. I didn't see anything about the mic, but it fixed it for me.

Here's the link: http://www.stuffedcow.net/macbook_audio

To install it, extract the archive to your desktop (it's already in a folder) or anywhere convenient. Then, open Device Manager (Start > My Computer (right-click) > Properties > Hardware tab > Device Manager.) Expand "Sound, video, and game controllers" and double-click "Cirrus Logic HD Audio". When the Properties dialog appears, click the "Update Driver..." button. Choose these responses I have outlined for you here:

No, not this time
Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)
Don't search. I will choose the driver to install.
Have Disk...

Now navigate to the folder where you extracted the drivers, and double-click the .INF file. (It should be the only one visible in that folder.) Two options should appear: "Cirrus Logic HD Audio [MacBook, No S/PDIF Out]" and "Cirrus Logic HD Audio [MacBook]". (I'm not completely sure about the name of the first one.) To find out which one to choose, look at your headphones port. If it's glowing red (yes, it lights up) choose the latter. Otherwise, choose the former. It will probably warn you that it's not signed, but just tell it to install the driver anyway. The problems will be fixed, and you shouldn't even need to reboot!

AppleScript: Create an empty file with ease

2009-07-27T22:21:00.000-04:00

I wrote this simple AppleScript that lets you create an empty file on the Mac, like you could in Windows. Make sure your script menu is enabled (Applications→AppleScript→AppleScript Utility→Show Script menu in menu bar) and then put it in your Library→Scripts folder. Here's the link:

http://pastebin.com/f67bb99ee

By the way, you don't need to cut 'n paste the whole thing. Just click the Download link at the top!

3D Shading Editor

2009-03-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

I've got a new program for you. It's called 3D Shading Editor. I've got a screenshot here, and the introduction from the Readme file, the latter of which should explain the weird colors in the screenshot. Here's the download link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/joomnm3xmgk/color3d.zip

As I'm sure many of you know, when using the Windows Classic visual style, you can customize the colors of pretty much anything. However, unlike in Windows 3.1, when you change the color for 3D objects, such as buttons and dialogs, the highlight and shadow colors automatically change with it. This may seem nice, but what if you want to specify your own colors for this? Windows doesn't provide any method for this, except for editing the registry or theme files, which can be very inconvenient when you just want to see what it looks like. However, this program can change these colors independently.

Phallic display at Giant deli

2008-12-31T21:44:00.001-05:00

I was at Giant the other day, and as I walked by the deli, I saw a decorative display which struck me instantly as looking quite phallic. If you don't know what that means, look it up. My mom and I both think it was made to look that way as a joke by an employee who has the same sense of humor as me. ;-)

EDIT: I just noticed, the "shaft" even has a picture of a rooster (cock) on it!

Xbox 360 Controller on PC Without Additional Software

2008-09-09T20:55:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, I figured out a way to use an Xbox 360 controller on a PC without downloading or installing any additional software. I got the idea when I read (I forgot where) that the controller is a standard HID device, except it sends the wrong class code (0xFF instead of 0x03) so that generic drivers won't automatically connect to it. This is obviously so that Microsoft could require people to use their special software to get it to work. Possibly so they could make you need to use Windows (although this information is written for Windows and, unfortunately, probably won't help if you're not using it.)

But there is a way to tell the generic drivers to connect to it anyway. Simply plug it in and let it install as an unknown device. Then, open Device Manager (Start, right-click My Computer, Properties, Hardware tab, Device Manager) and find your device. Right-click it and click Properties, and then switch to the Details tab. Make sure "Device Instance Id" is selected at the top, and then make note of everything on the top line up to "PID_XXXX" where XXXX can be any four hexadecimal digits (0-9 and A-F). For example, mine says "HID\VID_045E&PID_028E&IG_00\7&29E276DE&0&0000", so I would ignore everything except for the "HID\VID_045E&PID_028E" at the beginning. You can now close out the Properties dialog. Do that, then right-click the device and click Uninstall.

Now it's time to edit your INF file. Go to Start, Run, and type in "c:\windows\inf\input.inf" (without the quotes.) Notepad should open. If not, do the same thing except add "notepad" to the beginning of the string you type into the Run dialog. Scroll down to the section called "[MicrosoftGame]". Now, in a new line in that section, type in "%XXXX.DeviceDesc%=HID_Inst,, XXXX", replacing each instance of XXXX with that hardware ID you wrote down. (And no, I DON'T just mean those four hexadecimal digits I previously referred to in the same way.) Now scroll down to the "[Strings]" section near the bottom, and type in [XXXX.DeviceDesc="Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller"], not including the brackets. (I used brackets instead of quotes since there are quotes in the string itself.) And the XXXX refers to the same thing as it did last time (the hardware ID you wrote down, including but not limited to those four hexadecimal digits.) Now save the file and exit.

If your controller is still plugged in, unplug it and plug it back in. If not, simply plug it in. If a window appears asking if you want to connect to Windows Update, tell it not to. It may also put up a warning about it not having passed Windows Logo testing. Click "Continue Anyway" on any of these warnings. Eventually, it should finish! Now all there is left to do is go into the Game Controllers control panel, select the controller, click Properties, and calibrate it. Have fun!

P.S. I do recommend XBCD. It's another driver, but it's much better than Microsoft's official one. XBCD+ looks promising, but I haven't tried that yet. Oh, and by the way, I'm not referring to xkcd, the popular webcomic. ;-)

Half-Life 2: Episode Two Commentary Blooper

2008-08-26T00:03:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I was playing Half-Life 2: Episode Two in commentary mode, and I also happened to have the captions on. But when listening to one commentary node after I got off the elevator in the room with the thumper in the cave (if you played it you'd know what I'm talking about) it said, at the end, "[NOTE: good spot to take over the player's camera to swoop down and spawn some antlions and trigger the vort's attack]". Later on, I came across another one (in the area where you fight the two antlion guards shortly after you exit the cave) which said "[It'd be good to show wireframes of the model, and maybe 'Before and after' images.]" By the way, the model they were talking about was that of Alyx. Let me just point out that they didn't actually use either one of those ideas listed there, although I wish they had! These are obviously notes the developers left for themselves or other developers to see later on, but they seem to have forgotten to remove them! By the way, this is on the Xbox 360 version in The Orange Box; although I doubt it's specific to that version, I just want to let you know just in case.
Pretty funny, isn't it?

Birthday

2008-07-28T17:04:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to let you all know today's my birthday...if you want to send me some money as a birthday present, email me and I'll try to arrange it with my dad's PayPal account! ;-)

Convert Windows XP Home to Professional

2008-07-11T14:24:00.000-04:00

I recently modified my XP setup to trick my laptop into thinking it was running XP Professional, when in actuality it was running XP Home. This enables several features which were still on my system, but just not enabled. For example, I can now connect to a domain (well, not really, since I don't have a domain controller) and use lusrmgr.msc to configure users and groups. I now also have my Security tab visible in Properties dialogs.

And now for the information you've been dying to hear since you started reading this article: how to do it. First, you must go into c:\windows\i386. On some systems this may simply be c:\i386. Now see if there is a folder called winntupg in there. If there is, you're good to go. Otherwise, get it off another Windows XP CD. It doesn't matter whether it's an OEM copy that came with another computer; it also doesn't matter which edition that disc is. Just get that folder into your i386 directory.Now open up Registry Editor, select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and then click File > Load Hive. Select the file called setupreg.hiv in i386. Type in a temporary name, and then open that new key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Go to ControlSet001, Services, and then setupdd. Now double-click (Default), and change the 01 and 02 in there to 00's. Click OK, select that key that was created when you loaded the hive, and then go to File > Unload Hive. Click Yes, and then close Registry Editor.Now, look in i386 (on your hard drive) for a program called winnt32.exe. Run this program. When asked, choose to upgrade. Enter your product key (yes, it will be accepted) and install. You might want to put on some music while it copies files (this is only the first stage before it reboots, however.) May I suggest c:\windows\system32\oobe\images\title.wma?Now all that's left to do is wait, and then go through that Microsoft Out of Box Experience thing (with the blue question mark icon which moves around the screen giving assistance.) Even if you have an OEM copy of Windows, it will ask you to activate, but don't worry: it will do so just fine.Some features will still be missing, but that's simply because the files for them don't even come with XP Home. If you really want them, copy them off of another computer which runs an honest-to-goodness XP Professional.

Strange bitmaps inside many Windows programs

2008-07-06T20:04:00.000-04:00

If you have ever fooled around with Resource Hacker, a free tool to view and edit resources in Windows executables, you may have noticed that many programs contain resources which appear to have been for features which were originally going to be in a program, but then removed. For example, if you look in MSPaint, you can find some removed dialogs, and if you look in that pinball game included with Windows XP, you can find some kind of editor dialog which cannot be opened. But there are a few bitmaps you can find inside of many different executables that I just don't know what they could have been. Look at this one for an example:

I see check boxes, radio buttons, and are those yin-yangs? Whatever this could have been used for, I can't think of. If you want to see for yourself, I took this image from Dependency Walker (DEPENDS.EXE), a tool which comes with Microsoft Visual Studio (and can also be downloaded separately from dependencywalker.com) though I have seen this particular image in several other programs as well.

Download: Alert (command-line message box tool)

2008-07-05T00:16:00.000-04:00

I have another program for you: Alert. This program can create message boxes by command line. It is actually an upgrade of another program I had written for my own purposes, which only let you specify text. This one also lets you specify an icon and title text.

Download it at http://www.mediafire.com/?s10ryedzdmf!

Download: OutCmd

2008-06-30T19:26:00.001-04:00

Yes, that's right, another program ending in "Cmd." This one provides functionality similar to the Unix backquote (`) operator. If you don't know what that does, look at the readme.txt file, included along with the program and its source code.

Here's the link: http://www.mediafire.com/?ygxlggxijma

Car hidden in vent?

2008-02-20T19:00:00.000-05:00

Well I was wondering what it looks like in my vent, so I got out my digital camera, stuck it down in the vent, and took a picture (with the flash, of course!) What I got was certainly not what I was expecting:

Yes, that's right, there's a TOY CAR in the vent! As of now I still haven't retrieved it (I tried using both my bare hand and the vacuum cleaner) and in fact I think I may have even pushed it farther down. But I'm confident I'll get it sometime soon! ;)

But if you aren't the first owners of your house, especially if any of the previous owners had small children, you can be surprised at what you can find in your vents. I found what looks like another toy vehicle (but I can't really see what it is) and three little plastic people. Several years ago I also found some kind of orange thing with a picture of some character or something on it. But so far all I have managed to retrieve are the people (two I could get with my hands; the other one I needed the vacuum) and that orange thing.

But check your vents — you might find something!

Another download for you: Run with Parameters (RunCmd)

2008-02-11T20:41:00.000-05:00

From the readme.txt file:

[RunCmd] is a small open-source program I wrote to add a feature to Windows
that should have been there already. Have you ever wanted to run a
program with command line parameters using the GUI? Well then this is
the program for you!

Download it from MediaFire at http://www.mediafire.com/?4wgdkjjlihw, or from Softpedia using the button below!

Aperture Science desktop theme for Windows XP

2008-02-11T18:15:00.000-05:00

I created an Aperture Science desktop theme. For those of you who don't know, it is from a game called Portal. You can look at readme.txt in the file for more information.

Download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?31ni1uihm0w

Transparency checkerboard bookmarklet

2007-12-15T17:41:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I haven't actually written a post in a while (i.e. not just had Digg generate one for me.) Well hold your horses! I'm still posting!

Now you know when you edit images in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or (my favorite) Paint.NET, you see that gray and white checkerboard wherever there is transparency? Do you ever wish you had that in your web browser (especially when viewing images as pages?) Have you been looking for something that can add that? Well look no further, as I have bookmarklets (small pieces of code you can bookmark and execute on a whim) that can do that.

Simply drag one of these links onto your Bookmarks toolbar ~~(or your Links bar, dare I say it)~~:

Checkerboard (gray/white)
Checkerboard (high-contrast) (black/white)

EDIT: I forgot. The Links bar thing was supposed to be a joke about Firefox being better than Internet Explorer (which it is!) but it turns out these bookmarklets don't work in IE due to their use of the data: URI scheme. IE users, click here. Or, for an alternative solution, click here.

Firefox toolbar removal

2007-05-29T17:46:00.001-04:00

For quite a while, I have been wondering how to delete a custom toolbar from Firefox. I finally figured it out, and I am going to tell you just in case you have been wondering as well. It's actually pretty simple, but unintuitive. All that you have to do is remove all of the buttons from it. It won't disappear immediately, but it will after you hit OK. How do you remove buttons, you ask? Simply open the Customize Toolbar dialog (you should know how to open this...after all, how would you have created the toolbar?) and drag the button to the dialog. To remove the toolbar, repeat this for all of the buttons. Wait, do you want an empty toolbar to use as a separator or something? Well simply add a space to it. Yes, you must also remove all spaces/flexispaces/separators to remove the toolbar. Well, that's really all there is to it.

Wii countdown clock

2007-04-21T14:07:00.000-04:00

If you've ever been to Gamestop or EBGames shortly before the Wii was released, you have probably seen that big blue clock on the wall. It says "Experience Wii" on it in white text, and counts down to the Wii release date.
Well I was curious who owned it (Gamestop or Nintendo?) so today I called Gamestop. I already have a Wii, so I didn't ask if they had one of those in stock. But I asked who owned the clock. They said they received it from Nintendo, and that Nintendo didn't seem to want it back. So I asked where it was. It was in the back of the store. He then asked me something that I loved hearing: "Do you want it?" I then said yes. He asked me for my name, which I answered. He then said to be there by 4:00 PM. So I went to Gamestop and asked the guy I called for the clock. I told him my name, and he then replied, "You're the one!" He then went into the employees-only section and came out with the clock. I thanked him and went home with it. Now the owner is neither Gamestop nor Nintendo - it's me.

EDIT: I just found on the Internet that someone else got one as well. You can see it at http://revver.com/video/106925/bento-gets-the-wii-countdown-clock/.

Newspaper reference

2007-04-06T22:23:00.000-04:00

That concert was featured in the newspaper, and it made reference to me. It didn't reference me by name, but it was definitely referring to me. It errs, however, by saying I am a preteen. I am 13 at the time of writing and at the time of the concert. I can't post the image right here 'cause it's in TIFF format. However, you can download it at http://www.mediafire.com/?02gqdrj00qi.

BTW, I recently dusted off my old UMAX Astra 2100U scanner and my brother gave me the idea to scan the article and post it. So I did! That was from The Washington Post, by the way. The article is also readable from their website at http://tinyurl.com/2u5xrk.

Concert

2007-03-28T09:59:00.001-04:00

Okay, so yesterday I went to a Nellie McKay concert. I was having a lot of fun. Then my dad said I can yell out a request. I did, and she performed that song. But she forgot a lot of the lyrics. It's kind of funny if you think about it, because she was the one who wrote the song! By the way, the song was The Big One.

Then, she called me up to the stage. That's right. If you were at the concert with me, you'd remember. I gave out the address to this blog. She asked me to sing that song while she played. I tried, but I couldn't remember all the lyrics either. We eventually just gave up. It was funny. Then she played another song and had me dance with a girl, but she's not my girlfriend or anything.

That's about all I can remember, but it was fun. But I was feeling pretty weird up there, because I just wasn't used to being called up on stage in a concert. I was nervous, so please don't judge me.

EDIT: I now have an audio file of my part of the concert, courtesy of NPR. Download it at http://www.mediafire.com/?cztmxyrrgzz.

Nellie McKay, if you get on this blog, please email me at flarn2006@gmail.com.

Video Games

2007-03-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

Here is a list of all my video game consoles and handhelds. Please note, however, that this also includes ones that belong to my brother.

Consoles (12, including duplicates):
Nintendo GameCube (2)
Nintendo Wii (2)
Sony PlayStation 2
Microsoft Xbox 360
Microsoft Xbox (Original)
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Genesis (Megadrive)
Sega Saturn
Nintendo 64

Handhelds (8, including duplicates):
Nintendo DS (2)
Nintendo DS lite
Sega GameGear (broken)
Sony PSP
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP
Nintendo Game Boy Color

Which brings it to a total of 20 video game systems, including duplicates. That's 17 different systems (not including duplicates).

Don't mean to brag or anything!

Backing Up TI-83 Plus RAM

2007-03-04T10:55:00.001-05:00

Have you ever wanted to back up the RAM on your TI-83 Plus without a computer? Well it's possible. This video will explain how.

Dell's 17-inchers packing a jolt?

2007-02-07T20:11:00.001-05:00

Dell's 17-inch laptops have been reported to send out 19-65V of energy through its screws!

read more | digg story

Random Characters

2007-02-03T23:16:00.000-05:00

Here is a simple program I wrote. It is called Random Characters. It generates random characters. (Surprise surprise!) I have put a screenshot of it in this post.
The program is in the public domain, so you can download it for free. You guessed it: MediaFire. Download it at http://www.mediafire.com/?5m2mgmtizul.

Save MP3s in Sound Recorder

2007-01-31T17:47:00.000-05:00

Does Windows XP come with software to create MP3s? The answer is an obvious NO! Or is it? Yes, it does. Sound Recorder actually has a hidden ability to save in MP3 format. Go to http://www.mediafire.com/?1tlinumm2nh and download the MP3 file there. Believe it or not, it originated as a WAV file which was then converted using Sound Recorder. By the way, if it sounds familiar, play the video on the last post! Hmm...that's just about it...oh yeah! I've got to tell you how! I hate it when people don't...

Open Sound Recorder.
Record or open the sound to save as MP3.
Click File>Save.
Just saving it with the MP3 extension won't work. We have to save it as an MP3 file. See where it says Format and it has that PCM thing? Click on Change... next to it, and a window will appear.
Open the Format list, and click on MPEG Layer-3. This is what MP3 is short for!
Click OK and then save it with the MP3 extension. But put the entire filename (including the extension) in quotes so that it will actually be called, say, music.mp3, rather than music.mp3.wav.

You're done!

Sonic Advance gray boxes glitch

2007-01-29T17:55:00.001-05:00

At first I wasn't sure which blog to post it to. Then I realized it's not necessarily a test mode so I decided to post it to the main blog. I discovered this in Visual Boy Advance. From the description:

This is a memory hack for Sonic Advance. Open a Sonic Advance ROM in Visual Boy Advance and then go to Tools and Memory Editor. Go to 00000214 and change it from 0002 to 00FF. Then click on the emulator window and it will be black. Go back to the memory editor and change it back to 0002. Click on the emulator window and it might say something like "Unsupported ARM mode 18" and then this will happen when you click OK.

EDIT: I have decided to host the savestate of the gray boxes glitch and link to the rom:

Get the savestate from: http://www.mediafire.com/upload_complete.php?id=oyomg5zwzqm
Get the ROM from: http://www.emuv2.com/index.php?page=rom_dl&rid=1575

Due to legal reasons, I cannot give you a MediaFire link for it.

Building a Penny Bridge

2007-01-07T21:49:00.001-05:00

This is a video of me building a "bridge" of pennies (and a quarter.)

Virtual disk images in Windows XP

2006-11-18T14:06:00.000-05:00

What you need:

Windows XP (Either edition will work)
FileDisk (free, http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/, direct link http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/filedisk.zip)
A computer (duh)

What to do:

Download and install FileDisk from the website above.
Open a command prompt (Start>Run>type cmd)
Type the following text into the command prompt at C:\

fsutil file createnew example.img 1000000000
filedisk /mount 0 c:\example.img x:

Replace the parameters like this:

example.img >> Whatever you want the image file to be called
1000000000 >> The size of your drive
0 >> The filedisk drive ID (starts at 0, must be the lowest integer available)
c:\example.img >> The name of your image (note: path must be specified even if in current directory)
x: >> The drive letter (must not be in use) followed by a colon (:)

To unmount the drive: filedisk /umount x:

Note that you will need to format the new drive. You can then access it like any other drive until you reboot.

MediaFire: The best file upload service

2006-11-12T15:48:00.000-05:00

Now, when I say it's the best, you may think: "Well that's his opinion." Well I'm sure it will be your opinion too!
I quote from the site:

100% Free
Unlimited File Size
Unlimited Uploads
No Sign Up Required

Check that out! Sweet...

MediaFire is at http://www.mediafire.com, surprise, surprise. Check it out!

Weird glitch on my camera!

2006-11-11T22:50:00.000-05:00

You saw that post about my camera right? Well I just found a weird glitch in it! Take a look!

Yes, that's multiple folders (and a file, IMPOSSIBLE to delete without deleting all the folders as well :-S ) with the same name!
Basically I noticed that every time I turn on my camera a folder is created called DCIM if it doesn't exist. If it does exist, it doesn't create it. So I wondered: What if DCIM does exist...as a file rather than a folder? Well, I created a file called DCIM, and turned on my camera. I then turned it back off and reconnected the USB cable to find that that file was blank (it wasn't before) and there was not one, but TWO folders called DCIM. Opening one gave the following error:

G:\DCIM is not accessible.

The directory name is invalid.

Weird...
Each time I unplug it and plug it back in again it gives me two more folders called DCIM! In case you don't know (you probably do) no two folders or files in the same folder can have the same name, and neither can a file and a folder have the same name. The camera somehow broke that rule! BTW, that was the VistaQuest VQ1005, available at Wal*Mart for only $19.96!

VistaQuest VQ1005

2006-11-10T22:13:00.000-05:00

A while back I went to my local Wal*Mart and I saw a shelf of small keychain digital cameras there. Not thinking I could afford one, and purely out of curiosity, I looked at the price tag expecting it to be from $50-$100 or so. However, to my surprise, it read $19.96. I could afford it after all!
I purchased it and went home to try it out. It connects via USB, supports SD memory, and can also take short videos without audio. However, the downside is there is no picture-viewing display, there is no flash, and the battery runs out fairly quickly. Also there is a maximum of 40 seconds for each video clip.
In the long run however it is a pretty good camera, and I suggest you buy one. As you can tell from the title of this post, it's called the VistaQuest VQ1005.

Eval.c mod for dc

2006-11-04T17:18:00.000-05:00

Have you ever heard of dc? No, not Washington, DC! I'm talking about the RPN (reverse Polish notation) based calculator program for UNIX. It's open source, so therefore you can mod it. Well, I added a little extra feature into it: a clear-screen function. Whenever you type j as a command, it will clear the screen!

Download it at: http://www.paste-it.net/505/c

To use this mod, replace the contents of dc/eval.c in your bc (another calculator program that dc comes with) source directory with that code. Oh, and then recompile and move the new copy of dc created to your /usr/bin directory.

Route 666

2006-10-31T20:13:00.000-05:00

I've had this photo for a while, and finally decided to share it with you. It is of a sign on Monroe St. in Herndon, VA:

Look at the number on the top. Yes, you read correctly, it says 666, the Number of the Beast. I'm neither superstitious nor Christian however, so I don't believe in any of that stuff, but still, it's kind of funny! There's also something ironic about it: there is a church on that street. Oh, the irony! :-) lol

RSS feeds in Excel

2006-10-17T23:10:00.000-04:00

Here's a little something for you. It lets you create RSS feeds in Excel. To save an RSS feed, simply go to File->Save As... and then choose XML Data from the type list. Make sure you pick XML Data, and NOT XML Spreadsheet. Enjoy!

xlrss.zip

EDIT: I have switched to MediaFire, the best online file upload service, so if the link wasn't working before, try again!

D3BUGG3D

2006-09-10T15:24:00.000-04:00

I have another blog; this one is about debug/test modes hidden in everyday electronics. Check it out at http://d3bugg3d.blogspot.com. It's really cool!